1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to the field of culturing devices which are particularly usuable in the withdrawing and collecting of blood or other body fluid samplings in order to be placed in a culturing media to test and culture within a completely hermetically sealed culturing media chamber. The present invention provides a testing system which is useful in culturing and transporting the various organisms while maintained within a fully sterile culturing media.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Most culturing systems presently utilized in the prior art are useful in transportation only and does not include the one step fully sterile culturing application of the present invention. When such devices shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,783,106 issued to Henshilwood for a testing and culturing transporting system. This system is a good example of the present state of the art in that the sample is withdrawn from the source while exposed to the ambient environment but once it is placed wihin the culturing environment the chamber is sealed to prevent contamination during culturing. However, this Henshilwood system as others in the prior art does not prevent contamination during the movement of the sample to be cultured from the source to the culturing medium environment. Another example of such a patent is U.S. Pat. No. 3,901,219 issued to Kay which utilizes a two step process including the withdrawing of the body fluid by a standard syringe and the replacement of the body fluid within the blood collecting container of the invention at same time thereafter. Difficulties have arisen with this system since contacting of the sample with containers should be minimized to limit the possibility of contamination. Also the system utilizes several steps in order to establish the final sterile environment whereas the present invention achieves the sterile culturing environment in a one step operation.